Medical doctors and medical students oftentimes perform abdominal palpation exams on the abdomens of their patients to diagnose a variety of ailments. During an abdominal palpation exam, a particular medical student may use his hands to apply pressure to an abdomen and then formulate or confirm his diagnosis of the ailment based on what he felt during the abdominal palpation exam.
Typically, human volunteers are used to train and evaluate medical students to perform abdominal palpation exams. The human volunteers are given lab reports and instructions on simulating the ailments they are assigned. The medical students review the lab reports and perform abdominal palpation exams on the human volunteers to try to diagnose the ailments assigned to the human volunteers.
However, human volunteers generally do not have the voluntary muscle control to accurately simulate ailments of the abdomen, such as appendicitis or gall bladder stones. The human volunteers may try to simulate the ailments, but the “feel” of abdominal guarding is typically hard to duplicate. Abdominal guarding is an involuntary response in which abdominal muscles around an inflamed organ (or other inflammation) become tense or tighten, for example, to guard the inflamed organ from the pain of pressure. As an example, a human volunteer may not able to tighten the portion of his abdominal muscles that is directly above his appendix, and instead, the human volunteer may tighten his entire abdomen.
There are other disadvantages to using human volunteers. For example, some human volunteers may be better able to carry out instructions for their ailments than other human volunteers. Human volunteers also need to be found, paid, and trained on their assigned ailments. Legal disclaimers and other forms may also need to be signed by human volunteers.
Human dummies or partial human dummies do not remedy the shortcomings of using human volunteers. For example, in general, a partial human dummy merely illustrates the anatomy of the abdomen and may include a replica of the appendix. However, the partial human dummy will typically not simulate any ailments, such as appendicitis.
There is a need in the art for an improved manner of simulating ailments of the abdomen. Furthermore, there is a need in the art for an improved manner of training and evaluating medical students on how to perform abdominal palpation exams.